The present invention generally relates to printers and, more particularly, to printing on roll media using a page stitching technique.
Inkjet printers are often used to print documents and images on a print medium. The print medium can include sheet media and roll media. Sheet and roll media can be formed from a variety of stock types, such as paper, photograph print media and the like.
A conventional inkjet printer includes a movable inkjet printhead mounted on a carriage assembly. The carriage assembly moves the inkjet printhead laterally over the print medium in successive passes. The print medium is advanced in a direction perpendicular to the motion of the printhead by a drive assembly so that the printhead can progressively lay down segments of the desired pattern being printed.
The printhead has an array of nozzles. Each nozzle generates ink droplets as the printhead moves over the print medium to produce the desired pattern on the print medium. Typically, each nozzle is formed by a nozzle chamber, a firing mechanism, and an orifice, with the firing mechanism being located within the nozzle chamber. Each nozzle is supplied with ink from an ink supply reservoir, noting that different nozzles can be supplied with ink from different ink reservoirs for printing multiple colors or for printing on different types of media.
A trend in printer technology has been to increase the speed with which a multiple page document and/or multiple images can be printed. One solution has been to use roll media instead of sheet media so that the printer does not spend time loading and ejecting the print media. The roll media is then cut by a cutting assembly between document pages or images.
For some applications, greater speed is still desired. As an example, the prolific use of digital cameras has created a need for printing photographs on photographic print media. Commercial enterprises would like to service customers who desire a printout of a series of photographs as quickly as possible.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to increase the speed with which successive pages and/or images can be printed on a print media.
According to one aspect of the invention, the invention is a method of printing a multiple page print job on a print medium is provided. The method includes opening a shingling sequence for a first page of the multiple page print job by successively passing a printhead over the print medium and printing the first page in a steady state mode of the printhead; and maintaining the steady state mode of the printhead during a transition between printing the first page and printing a second page of the multiple page print job, such that the second page is printed as a continuation of the shingling sequence for the first page.
According to another aspect of the invention, the invention is a method of printing a multiple page print job on a print medium. The method includes receiving the multiple page print job from a print job source with a controller; transmitting print data for a first page of the multiple page print job from the controller to a print engine; controlling a printhead with signals from the print engine to print the first page with successive passes of the printhead over the print medium; transmitting a stitch next page command from the controller to the print engine; and further controlling the printhead with signals from the print engine to print a second page of the multiple page print job with successive passes of the printhead as a continuation of the first page.
According to yet anther aspect of the invention, the invention is a printer system. The printer system includes a printhead for printing on a print medium during successive passes over the print medium; and a control assembly for controlling the printhead to print a multiple page print job by opening a shingling sequence for a first page of the multiple page print job and printing the first page in a steady state mode of the printhead and maintaining the steady state mode of the printhead during a transition between printing the first page and printing a second page of the multiple page print job such that the second page is printed as a continuation of the shingling sequence for the first page.
According to still another aspect of the invention, the invention is a printer system. The printer system including a printhead for printing on a print medium during successive passes over the print medium; a controller for receiving a multiple page print job from a print job source; and a print engine for controlling the printhead in accordance with print data received from the controller corresponding to the multiple page print job, the print engine controlling the printhead to print a first page of the multiple page print job and to print a second page of the multiple page print job as a continuation of the first page in response to a stitch next page command received from the controller.